Although I've found my haunts and joints that I love in my grimy - yet still charming - city of Los Angeles*, they pale in comparison to the places I came to know and love in SF. Perhaps it's because I didn't learn to appreciate and really worship food until I moved there. I got my first taste of everything from jaw droppingly expensive meals, what it means to eat locally, how good vegetarian fare can actually be (said the non apologetic carnivore), the most delicious meals I've ever had for a mere pittance, and everything in between when I lived there.
*like the Allston Yacht Club on Echo Park Blvd. and Garage Pizza on Sunset Blvd.
You couldn't bribe me with a lifetime supply of Hog Island oysters or falafels from Truly Mediterranean to move back to the city by the bay, for I'm attached to Los Angeles as I am to my own limbs, but still...sometimes, I get cravings.
Cut to this past Tuesday night. I'm walking home from my very favorite bar. One that doesn't serve hard alcohol and whose chalkboard menu won't list any beers you've ever heard of (if you're a novice, such as myself), but is warm and welcoming and whose back patio housed the meeting spot of a certain new man in my life, one fateful evening (Valentine's Day, if you can believe it).
Craving ice cream, as I'm wont to do, I quickly ducked into the drug store and was met with a beautiful sight: from the bottom shelf in the frosty freezer peaked my favorite San Francisco edible. I wouldn't have even recognized it, had I not been so very familiar with the wrapper (having almost shoved the entire thing, familiar wrapper and all, into my facehole on many occasions).
I've written about them before -- the magical being that is an It's It ice cream sandwich. Since I moved back to LA three years ago I've been searching for them in every liquor store I patronize, begging sweaty ambivalent owners of said liquor stores to carry them, and driving into the Valley, of all places, just to track down the illusive treat. And now, here they are practically at my doorstep...sold in singles, no less (the first I've found in LA).
I walked back to the house and finished the whole damn thing, wrapper and all (jay kay...maybe) by the time I reached the front door. That's the way they should be eaten: while heading somewhere in a rush -- whether because one has to catch the very last train, or in the case of Tuesday night, because one has to piss so freaking bad she can feel it in her very fingernails (woe is me and my minuscule bladder).
Another piece of my heart has now secreted itself away from San Francisco, where it can begin being encapsulated by the life I've formed for myself here in Los Angeles. 
P.S. If you live in LA and want to try an It's It (which I HIGHLY suggest) you can find singles here (only vanilla, sadly), and boxes (including mint!) here.
6 comments:
I lived in the Plateau in Montreal for a few years, and it totally spoiled me. I had regular and easy access to Schwartz's, and so I became hooked on Montreal Smoked Meat. And not just any ol' Smoked Meat, no, the best of the best.
Outside of Montreal, it's difficult to get the Real Thing. And once you've had the Real Thing, you can't ever go back down the ladder. It's like Scotch that way.
There are a bunch of delis around that sell something they call Montreal Smoked Meat, but usually it's just Pastrami, and brother -- Pastrami ain't Montreal Smoked Meat.
Absent a basement freezer where I can store briskets direct from Schwatz's (which indeed is not unknown, and even common among the die-hards), there's not much I can do to get my fix.
A few months ago, one of the local supermarket chains started selling Montreal Smoked Meat in packages you can nuke. HOWEVER, you can also steam it as God intended, and then you have a Montreal Smoked Meat sammich that's maybe 80% of the Real Thing. Maybe a Dunn's or Main's sammich compared to a Schwartz's, which is very respectable indeed, although -- again -- not the Real Thing.
That missing 20% is still quite noticeable, though, but it can stave off a seven hour drive for a while. But I'm also out of Quebec beer, so compelling vectors are, uh, compelling.
Salt potatoes.
If you know what those are, then you don't need to keep readin', but in case you don't: basically, you boil baby potatoes in water that's been insanely, heavily salted, such that when the potatoes come out of the water, they dry with a thin, lacy crust of salt all over, which you then dip into melted butter and thank life for being awesome. Nobody outside of central New York state seems to know what these are.
Captrenault: I don't even know what Montreal Smoked Meat is, exactly, let alone the magical sounding place that is Schwartz's! Sounds freaking amazing. Someday I shall try one, and I'll dedicate it to you.
Jon: Yep, never heard of this beast you call "salt potatoes", being a life-ling California native. I LOVE regional food though, and this fits in nicely.
Let me help you with those salted potatoes. While they don't have them in California they do have the ingredients readily available, which are salt and...wait for it...potatoes. Jon, just make them!!! (As an aside, there really is something special about the salt packet that's right in the bag of potatoes.)
When you talk about Central New York specialties two things come to mind that LA lacks. First is cold cheese pizza, from Oneonta, NY. This is a city where college kids drunkenly eat pizza that just fell out of a 500 degree oven. Rather than burning the mouths of the student body the pizza shop owners would grab a handful, they were very liberal with this, of cold motz. and throw it on top. Each pizza place claims they invented this.
Secondly, Reubens...yes, we have them in LA but believe me they are not the same. That would be like saying; "football, yeah LA has that," it's just not the same. Only I can make reubens like New York, I've yet to find a restaurant that can do it.
You know how I feel about the "It's It" too! I miss them so bad. Any time I know someone is going to be visiting SF, I plead with them to track down and It's It and eat it in my honor.
I almost bought a case for my birthday a couple years ago but it would have cost nearly $100 to ship and I just didn't have that kinda dough to throw around.
Hmm...Dough to throw around, now I want pizza....
I have a very fond memory of you and I finding coffee flavored ITS ITS and we were so happy about it.- kate
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